How long does a forex signal take to close?

The median forex signal we publish closes in 3.0 hours. The fastest resolved in 4 minutes, the slowest took 63.0 hours, and 73% are finished within six hours of firing. Across 766 closed trades, here is the shape of it.

The distribution

1. 10% close within 40 minutes.
2. 25% close within 1.4 hours.
3. Half close within 3.0 hours. The mean is 4.1, dragged up by a thin tail of slow trades.
4. 75% close within 6.5 hours, 90% within 8.0.
5. Only 1% run past 12 hours.

Losing trades resolve fastest

Split by outcome, the pattern is consistent and slightly counterintuitive:

1. Stop loss — median 1.6 hours. Comfortably the quickest.
2. TP3 — median 2.7 hours. The furthest target, reached faster than the nearer ones.
3. TP1 — median 3.2 hours.
4. TP2 — median 4.5 hours.
5. Breakeven exit — median 4.6 hours. The slowest.

A trade that is wrong tends to be wrong immediately: price turns and the stop is hit before the setup has had time to develop. A trade that is right in a strong way is also quick — TP3 hits come from moves with momentum behind them, and momentum does not dawdle.

The slow trades are the undecided ones. A median of 4.6 hours for breakeven exits describes a position that drifted, gave up its early gain and closed without ever committing. That is the group worth paying attention to, because it is where most of the ambiguity in any signal record lives.

What this means in practice

Two things follow, and they pull in opposite directions.

You do not need to watch the market all day. Set the entry, the stop and the targets, and the overwhelming majority of trades will resolve themselves inside a working afternoon without any further input.

You do need to be there at the start. These are short-term setups on low timeframes, and the entry is only valid for a minute or two. If you see a signal an hour after it fired, price has usually moved well past the entry and the trade is no longer the one that was published. Skipping it is the correct decision — chasing it is not.

Check this yourself

Every trade in this article is on our public record with both timestamps visible: the moment it fired and the moment it closed. You can verify any holding time above by opening the trade.

Browse the full record, or read why entry timing matters this much.

Figures recomputed from the live record on every page load — 766 closed trades since 2026-04-20, current as of 14 September 2026. Past performance does not indicate future results.